A five year old whisky that’s being released at about € 110 must be something special, right? It does remind me a little bit of Compass Box’s 3 year old from a couple of years ago.

This bottling was done for the celebration of Whiskyfun‘s 20th anniversary. According to sources on the internet is consists of only single malts from the Sutherland region of Scotland. The split is roughly 1/3 of one distillery, 2/3 of another and about 1% of a third.

Now, interestingly, there are only three distilleries in Sutherland that are operational. Thompson Brothers’ own Dornoch Distillery, Clynelish and Brora. That settles the debate about the 1% immediately, but the other split is not overly clear from any documentation I’ve been able to find (although, I spent about 30 seconds looking…)

Initially I didn’t realize this was a celebration bottling and considered it to be ‘just a gimmicky thing’. But when it sold out almost instantly at Whiskybase, I decided to get my hands on one through another retailer and bottle-shared it.

Sniff:
This is very different to what I’m used to from young single malts. Especially considering there’s a significant amount of 5 year old whisky in this mix, there’s quite a layer of aromas.

Generally, with contemporary young whisky, there’s generally a lot of cask activity noticeable, but there’s not so much here. The flipside of that would be a very spirity whisky, but that’s also not the case. It’s quite a layered, surprisingly mature and old fashioned dram, this.

There are some wood spices, quite a lot of dry barley. Some cracked leather in the background. A hint of toasted black pepper. Even though it’s not a sherry cask, there are some autumnal scents. Barley fields ready for harvest and an apple orchard. Some oak, of course, but as said not overpowering.

Sip:
The palate brings quite a bit of a peppery bite for a whisky at 48.5% ABV. Black pepper, white pepper. Nothing too exotic. Barley, a bit of an oaky sweetness, apple sauce, some woody spices.

Swallow:
The finish veers back to the spices with much more focus on that than the palate had. And then I don’t mean the peppery heat, but the flavors of wood spices and sawdust.

I am very positively surprised by this. It’s technically five years old but it tastes much older and mature than that. Also, it doesn’t taste like an ‘engineered’ whisky, like they actually gave the spirit room to develop instead of tinkering with it to some imagined result.

Of course, there has to be something to complain about and that, in this case is a double edged sword. This is a ridiculously drinkable whisky and my sample of 25cl almost evaporated. I really went through this quickly. That’s not a problem per se, but at € 110 it is a quite expensive hobby if this is the caliber of the daily dram… Having said that, I’m seriously considering getting a second bottle…

88/100